Aggregating The New Statesmen book recommendations
There are dozens of separate recommendations, by well-known writers, but these three books recur repeatedly:
1. John Jeremiah Sullivan, Pulphead: Essays. I enjoyed this one too.
2. Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, already out in the UK not yet out in the US.
3. Michael Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Deirdre McCloskey had a good review of that book here.